Case Number 06543: Small Claims Court

STAR OCEAN EX: THE INCEPTION (VOLUME 1)

The Charge

"When the people of Expel suffer from evil threats, a warrior in the
guise of another world shall arrive and save the people with his sword of
light."

The Case

Somewhere in a distant galaxy, a giant starship exits hyperspace in the
center of an asteroid field. On board is Claude C. Renni, son of the ship's
heroic, legendary captain. The asteroids are too much for the ship, and it
crashes on a nearby planet. While exploring this new world with the surviving
crew, Claude gets too close to an alien artifact and vanishes in a flash of
light.

Claude finds himself on yet another strange planet, where he immediately
rescues a young girl named Rena from a giant bear-like creature. Claude
eventually learns that this planet, Expel, has been overrun by vicious monsters
ever since a mysterious object called the Sorcery Globe fell from the sky years
ago, infesting the countryside with dark magic. Rena believes Claude is a great
warrior, prophesied to rid the world of the Sorcery Globe. He embarks on a
search for it, with Rena as his guide. Claude doesn't believe this prophecy, but
he hopes the Globe can somehow reunite him with his father.

Still with me? Good. What we have here is five episodes of sword-swinging,
laser-blasting, monster-fighting action from Geneon, all based on a Square Enix
Playstation game.

Determining why anime has become popular in recent years is a discussion too
large for this review, but one big reason is the animation itself. The attention
to detail, the fluid movements of the characters, and the larger-than-life
action are all anime staples that appeal to fans. Unfortunately, Star Ocean
EX lacks these visual qualities.

Many times during any given episode, all movement comes to a complete stop,
and we're treated to several seconds of a static image for a voiceover or
dramatic pause. Sudden halts like this are typical in animation, but this series
relies on it far too often. It's distracting, and it smacks of a low budget. As
lovers of everything from Bullwinkle to South Park know, clever
writing and directing can overcome a limited animation budget, but that didn't
quite happen here.

The plot is your standard hero's journey, where the young headband-wearing
warrior finds himself in a strange world and then embarks on a quest to save it.
This is the same kind of story we've seen in other TV series and movies, not to
mention novels, comics, and yes, video games. Whether future episodes will add
new twists remains to be seen. At this point it's an amusing series with a lot
of fight scenes, but there's not much else here.

Visually, the full screen presentation is adequate, with bright colors and
few flaws in the image. Too bad the animation itself is so limited. Probably the
best part of the disc is the amazing Dolby Digital surround sound mix. The
action scenes and the rocking theme song will give your speakers a decent
workout. Dialogue is provided in both an English dub and the original Japanese
with English subtitles. The difference between the two, in terms of plot and
character, are minor, so fans can enjoy the audio either way. Extras are the
usual textless opening, an alternate opening, four useless character profiles,
and previews for three other Geneon releases.